Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today I've got a
Speaker 1: classic episode for you from our former host, Christian Sager.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been close with a non human animal,
Speaker 1: you may think it's obvious that they have senses of humor,
Speaker 1: even if most of what they think is funny is
Speaker 1: you know us. But we set out to learn what
Speaker 1: science has to say about it. Have you ever tried
Speaker 1: to tell a joke to an animal. I've done it before,
Speaker 1: I talked to my dogs, whatever. But this this is
Speaker 1: brain Stuff and I'm Christian Sager. So here's the question.
Speaker 1: Can animals laugh? In some cases this might sound ridiculous.
Speaker 1: There are many different types of laughter, and generally speaking,
Speaker 1: these types fall into two broad categories complex social laughter,
Speaker 1: where you have to know the context or have a
Speaker 1: sense of humor to you know, get it and laugh
Speaker 1: after in response to stimulation like tickling. Some animals, such
Speaker 1: as primates, seem to have a sense of humor, meaning
Speaker 1: they can respond to situations with a pant that sounds
Speaker 1: eerily similar to laughter. You can read numerous stories about
Speaker 1: Coco the gorilla allegedly making jokes in sign language and
Speaker 1: so on. Additionally, when adult animals like dolphins or ravens
Speaker 1: play pranks, they're indicating an understanding of humor. But laughter
Speaker 1: itself seems more common than humans had originally thought. Rats
Speaker 1: have been laughing their furry little keysters off since the
Speaker 1: dawn of recorded history, but we only figured this out
Speaker 1: a few years back. It turns out rats like being tickled,
Speaker 1: and when they're tickled, they chirp at a range too
Speaker 1: high for human ears to pick up. It's around fifty
Speaker 1: kila hurts. We know this thanks to the work of
Speaker 1: Jacques pan Skep and Jeffrey Bergdorff beginning in the late
Speaker 1: nineties at Bowling Green State University. And if we're talking
Speaker 1: about that second category of laughter, a positive vocalization associated
Speaker 1: with touch, then the comedy floodgates may have just swung open.
Speaker 1: Dr de Villa Ross has been gathering as much data
Speaker 1: as possible about the reactions various animals have to being tickled.
Speaker 1: The list of animals that make a vocal reaction when
Speaker 1: tickled include mere cats, camels, dolphins, dogs, owls, penguins, and
Speaker 1: more So. What's the explanation, Well, according to Michael O. Wren,
Speaker 1: an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience from Georgia State University.
Speaker 1: That's my alma mater. The case may be simple, at
Speaker 1: least when applied to mammals. It's just a pleasant feeling
Speaker 1: evoked by touching. Laughter. It seems may well be millions
Speaker 1: of years old and existed before human beings. If you
Speaker 1: think about it, we're sort of late to the joke.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, most scientists aren't calling this straight
Speaker 1: out laughter. Instead, they're suggesting that these positive vocalizations, or,
Speaker 1: as Dr de Villa Ross writes, expressions of joy. And
Speaker 1: when we ask whether laughter is a sign of intelligence,
Speaker 1: Dr pank Step notes that intelligence isn't a requirement for laughter. Instead,
Speaker 1: he suggests maybe we should look at it from another direction.
Speaker 1: Perhaps play in any species can increase social intelligence. As
Speaker 1: research continues, we're learning more and more about animals, laughter,
Speaker 1: and keep. Today's episode was written by Ben Bollin and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more from Ben, check
Speaker 1: out his very funny podcast Ridiculous History, and for more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other topics, visit how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For
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